


Thinner Than Blood

by PinkRangerV



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Angst with a Happy Ending, Autistic Castiel, Blood Brothers, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Familial Abuse, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, leaving abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-23
Updated: 2014-06-23
Packaged: 2018-02-05 23:26:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1836049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PinkRangerV/pseuds/PinkRangerV
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb. Maybe Dean and Sam shared parents, but it was time to move on. AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thinner Than Blood

**Author's Note:**

> So there was a Tumblr post inspiring this: http://scamdal.tumblr.com/post/88764520133/before-writing-your-au-consider-the-following. Apparently my bunnies can't read the words 'emergency room au' without actually doing a thing. *headdesk*
> 
> Everyone's human, I tried to translate the events relatively accurately, 'Zeke' becomes 'Zack' and 'Lucifer' becomes 'Nick' just for naming conventions. Also, if Cas were human he'd be autistic, and I'm not entirely convinced he's not the angel version of it. I know Gadreel didn't beg Sam's forgiveness, but in this version his PTSD episode did not have Metatron continuing to be a constant pressure on his psyche.
> 
> EDIT: This has somehow been posted on ebooks-tree, which is making money off work I did not profit from. I am FURIOUS. I am writing for free INTENTIONALLY, NOT because I'm too stupid to make money here. If you got here via ebooks-tree, you should know what they're doing--get away from that site! Come hang out on AO3, FFN, LiveJournal, or DeviantArt instead for ethical fanworks.

Dean was laying on the roof of the hospital, staring at the sky.

 

Well, not really the _roof_ per se. The hospital wasn’t going to leave a door open to the roof. But no one was paying attention and there was this sort of lower roof, and it was the middle of the night, and the hospital lights were bright but the sky was pure black.

 

The hospital walls rose higher around Dean, but from here he could feel the cold night air and see the sky, so he lay on the concrete and didn’t move.

 

Sam saw Dean and went over to him and lay down.

 

They were both quiet for a second before Dean said, “Just like old times, hunh?”

 

“Two broken ribs. Sprained ankle. Concussion. Bruising everywhere.” Sam said in a hoarse voice. “No, Dean. It’s not.”

 

Dean winced.

 

Dean and Sam were long-lost brothers. Their father had dropped them off at an orphanage; foster care had separated them...then Dean’s son (or stepson, but Sam didn’t even try to hide his snort at that) had a cough that wouldn’t go away, and Sam and Jess had been trying to rescue a dog and Jess had wound up with a bite, and Jess and Ben were sleeping peacefully while the doctors still didn’t get around to looking at them, and Dean and Sam had both wound up at this roof, looking at the waxing moon.

 

Then they’d hung out together. Started being brothers again. Beers, football, cars...Dean quizzed Sam on his legal terms and Sam played tool monkey when Dean wanted to work on the Impala that their father had left him in his will. They’d gone hunting--Dean liked the sport, Sam brought meat home and Jess made leather crafts to sell to her more hippie friends.

 

They’d bumped into Castiel on a hunt. Well, more like Cas had appeared out of nowhere and stated that they were on private property like it was the answer to life, and Dean had nearly gotten into a fistfight with him before Mike had intervened. Mike, Nick, and Cas were brothers; with their father gone, they’d taken over their father’s summer home in the woods. They never said why, but from the way they carefully doted on Cas, and the way Cas seemed absolutely at home in the wild...well, what was brotherhood if it wasn’t going to live in the woods for an autistic little brother?

 

Turned out that it was less ‘brotherhood’ and more ‘two serial killers who wanted their privacy’. They might have loved Cas, enough so Cas cried when he told Dean what they were, but Cas was as much bait as brother, and the two played Sam and Dean against each other like harps, using threats and torture to keep them in line.

 

Sam ended it by locking them away, with him, until Dean and Cas could get the cops.

 

“Look,” Dean said, and Sam wasn’t imagining the tears there, “Just...just hit me. Or whatever. Scream at me. I deserve it.”

 

Sam tried not to facepalm. What his brother _deserved_ was a nice long stay at a mental hospital. “Dean. I’m not going to hit you.” Sam had been hit often enough to know what it felt like.

 

“I just…” Dean was almost crying. “I’m poison, Sammy. I ruin everything I touch.”

 

It was the same thing Dean had said after he’d been released from jail. He and Cas...Sam had no idea how they'd wound up in jail. He’d had no idea they’d been in jail at all--he’d thought they were dead, and mourned with Lisa and Ben.

 

Lisa had walked away when she’d found out. Maybe Sam should’ve taken the hint.

 

“I ruined Lisa and I ruined Ben and I ruined you and--”

 

“Dean.” Sam interrupted, sitting up. “Stop.”

 

Dean stopped.

 

“You didn’t _ruin_ me. You decided that I needed to get laid, so you roofied me and told Gadreel I was kinky.” Sam said firmly. “That’s not you being poison. That’s you being an asshole.”

 

Dean snorted and stared blankly up at the sky. “Same thing.”

 

Damnit. Sam had even had this talk with the nice counselor earlier, and it was already turning into a shitfest. He looked up at the waning moon. “No. That’s not the problem here. The problem is that you try to make decisions for me.” Stupid, stupid decisions--finding out that Sam had a fling while he and Jess were temporarily broken up and then fake-texting Sam from said fling’s number; turning in one of Sam’s old friends for stealing food for her son, then lying and saying he left her with the new job she’d found; the constant yelling and guilt-tripping and punching; slipping a roofie in Sam’s drink at a party because he thought ‘Zack’ would be a great lay for Sam; lying to Sam at every turn about what happened, saying Sam had just gotten drunk and slept it off; telling ‘Zack’ it was a good idea to keep drugging Sam, because after all it was better if Sam and Jess didn’t know Sam’s ‘drinking partner’ was his lover; finding out ‘Zack’ was actually a returned vet named Gadreel and triggering Gadreel into holding Sam hostage in his apartment and nearly beating the shit out of Sam before Sam had knocked him out.

 

...Now that Sam thought about it, this was maybe not that healthy of a relationship. Hell, the guy who _raped_ him had called from jail crying and begging Sam’s forgiveness.

 

Dean snorted.

 

Sam sighed and took his brother’s hand. “Goodbye, Dean.”

 

“What?” Dean sat bolt-upright.

 

“I need…” Sam sighed, because Dean’s face _hurt_ and Sam remembered that they’d been _happy_ once and _brothers_ and he loved his brother. “Dean, I need some time. And I’m not sure I’m coming back.”

 

Dean stared.

 

Sam got up and left. Dean could see the outline of Castiel in the doorway--Cas was going with Sam, wherever Sam was headed, off into the bright lights of the hospital.

 

It was pure dark, and cold, and Dean suddenly realized he was alone.

 

All that was left was a drop of his brother’s blood on the ground beside him.

 


End file.
